Film - Rosita

In 1922, the most popular actress in America, Mary Pickford, invited the most acclaimed director in Europe, Ernst Lubitsch, to make his first Hollywood film. The result was Rosita, released in 1923, in which Pickford plays a street singer of old Seville whose satirical barbs at the king of Spain arouse, in time honored tradition, first his ire and then his ardor. For Lubitsch, Rosita was the beginning of a new, more intimate and philosophical direction in his work. It’s here that one first strongly feels the emergence of what would come to be known as ‘the Lubitsch touch’ – the concise gesture that summarizes a character, the placement of a prop that eliminates pages of exposition, the creation of mood and drama through lighting, composition and montage. – Dave Kehr.